The Female Gaze: Annie Leibovitz's women

25 October 2017

As a new book of her photos is published, American photographer Annie Leibovitz reflects on how life has changed for the women in front of her lens – and for another of her famous subjects, Harvey Weinstein.

Annie Leibovitz | Photo: Annie Leibovitz

There are few photographers in the world whose style is instantly recognisable. Annie Leibovitz - famed for her dramatic tableau and strong female gaze - is one of them.

It's like going out and photographing the sea or the ocean
Annie Leibovitz

She put the first pregnant woman on a magazine cover with her 1991 portrait of a naked Demi Moore. And in her latest collection, Annie Leibovitz Portraits: 2005-2016, it’s her distinctive approach to her female subjects that again stands out.

Since 1999, Leibovitz has worked on a long-term project called Woman which she created with her late partner Susan Sontag, the writer and essayist behind the seminal 1977 study, On Photography.

The project aims to capture intimate portraits of female leaders in politics, sports, business and culture, and has seen Leibovitz photograph the likes of Hillary Clinton, ballerina Misty Copeland and writer and director Lena Dunham.

"The idea of doing a project on women was Susan's idea," Leibovitz told Front Row. "I was very nervous about doing something like that. It's like going out and photographing the sea or the ocean. I mean, where do you start? Where do you end? And I didn’t want to segregate women from men."

"But as Gloria Steinem says, we don’t have [enough] imagery of women."

Steinem, the American activist at the forefront of the feminist movement since the 1960s, is one of many women photographed at work in the new collection. Steinem is pictured at her writing desk, surrounded by piles of papers and books, lit by the soft glow of her lamp.

Gloria Steinem | Photo: Annie Leibovitz

COO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg, meanwhile, is pictured in a meeting room at Facebook's headquarters in California. Kathleen Kennedy, producer of over 60 films and president of Lucasfilm, is shot on the Star Wars set. And Adele is at her piano.

Powerful women were harder to find in 1999

So has Leibovitz seen things change for women since she started the project in 1999?

"Today, when I'm looking at photographs of Sheryl Sandberg, or Shonda Rimes and Kathleen Kennedy, they're very comfortable with themselves," Leibovitz says. "Kathleen Kennedy just comes and sits down. Powerful women were harder to find in 1999!"

But alongside the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and Hillary Clinton, one portrait in the collection now particularly stands out: a picture of the film moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein with their mother Miriam in Queens, New York.

Taken in 2003, it shows Harvey Weinstein at the height of his powers before allegations of sexual harassment and assault became public this month.

"I'm gasping too that it's in there," Leibovitz says and insists the photo is about "taking these big powerful guys and bringing them down to earth with their mother. They're not made to look like big strong men. They were brought back to being boys. I like it because it’s like seeing Harvey Weinstein brought to task."

But does she feel that as a celebrity photographer she's been complicit in the objectification of women?

"I don't. The tension between the good and the bad has always been there and I do, within this system, try to work it as best I can."

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg | Photo: Annie Leibovitz

"Initially," Leibovitz says, "I was hoping the last photo in the book would be Hillary Clinton in the Oval office."

I was hoping the last photo would be Hillary Clinton in the Oval office

When she now takes photos, she thinks of her two daughters and of "setting an example. I do think what it would mean to them and how it’d affect them."

"I remember when Serena Williams played Venus in the US Open a couple of years ago," she says. "Venus lost to Serena and they jumped over the net and held each other in an incredible embrace. I ripped it out of the paper the next day and pinned it to the refrigerator and said, 'Girls, these are sisters! This is amazing!' And then I spent a whole year trying to get Serena and Venus again together. All I wanted to do for them was to hug."

The cover of Leibovitz's latest collection features the performance artist Marina Abramovic as Eve in the Garden of Eden. Abramovic's Eve is not the weeping, guilt-ridden temptress of the Bible; she’s a defiant figure draped in not one but two snakes. And it's definitely Abramovic - not the serpent - in charge.